Motorists warned of diversions and overnight closures around Lancaster as M6 repair project gets underway

A £1.5 million overnight wear and tear repairs project starts on a stretch of the southbound motorway near Lancaster on Monday, March 14.

National Highways says it will be deploying extra resources to the 13-night project to minimise the impact of the work on motorway users and nearby Lancaster – which is on the diversion route for a handful of overnight southbound carriageway closures.

National Highways project manager Frank Jamieson said: “Ordinarily, we’d be looking at 16 overnight carriageway closures to deliver resurfacing in this part of the M6 but by pulling in extra resources from elsewhere we’re reducing that by almost half to only nine.

“The section of the motorway south of junction 34 has particular challenges because we don’t always have the space to resurface and keep a lane open to drivers, so we will need to use the long-standing diversion route through Lancaster.”

WATCH: Our Retro video shows how armed response teams brought the M6 to a standstill.The programme of work includes two nights of resurfacing and overnight carriageway closures between junction 35 at Carnforth and junction 34 at Lancaster and seven nights of resurfacing and associated carriageway closures between junction 34 and junction 33 at Galgate. There will also be four nights of lane closures during the work.

For the junction 35 to junction 34 closure a diversion will operate via the parallel A6. The diversion for the junction 34 to junction 33 closure is more complicated and involves joining the westbound A683 Bay Gateway and southbound A6 before crossing the River Lune and skirting Lancaster city centre and then heading down the A6 to Galgate.

Mr Jamieson said: “Although we’ll be doing this work when the motorway is at its quietest the diversion route is likely to add more than 30 minutes to journeys so we’re advising drivers planning to travel overnight on those dates to consider an alternative route or different dates.”

To speed up the resurfacing programme, National Highways will be using ‘echelon’ working which involves deploying extra resources including using multiple planing and paving machines working in unison.